Ummmm..
Gene Chizik, really? I mean, really? You fired Tuberville for Gene Chizik. I'll give the guy a chance, but could you hire someone any more underwhelming?
I didn't think AU could lose any more cred, boy was I wrong. The administration at AU is awful. The only thing I can think is they hired somebody they could control. The good ol boy system strikes again.
Gene Chizik, really? I mean, really? You fired Tuberville for Gene Chizik. I'll give the guy a chance, but could you hire someone any more underwhelming?
I didn't think AU could lose any more cred, boy was I wrong. The administration at AU is awful. The only thing I can think is they hired somebody they could control. The good ol boy system strikes again.
hno:
I don't think too many people on the plains are happy about this hire....
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2008/12/auburn_family_stunned_by_gene.html
Nick Saban will eat Gene Chizik for breakfast
Posted by Kevin Scarbinsky - The Birmingham News December 13, 2008 7:04 PM
Categories: Alabama Football, Auburn Football, SEC, Sports
Gene Chizik? As head football coach? At Auburn?
One former SEC assistant heard the news and laughed out loud, according to Birmingham News columnist Kevin Scarbinsky.
Todd J. Van Emst Auburn defensive coordinator Gene Chizik, center, won the Broyles Award in 2004 as the nation's top assistant coach. The Tigers went 13-0 that year. At left is his wife Jonna and, on his right, former Arkansas head coach Frank Broyles. The award was presented to Chizik in Little Rock on Jan. 11, 2005.
One former Auburn assistant who worked alongside Chizik reacted with stunned silence.
One college football insider who knows both the current Alabama coach and the coach Auburn has chosen to battle him said Chizik is a good coach - but suggested that Nick Saban will eat him for breakfast.
No word on whether it'll be before or after his daily Little Debbies.
In Saban, the current national coach of the year, Alabama found the next best thing to Bear Bryant.
In Chizik, even some people who bleed orange and blue fear, Auburn may have countered with another Doug Barfield.
It's an invalid comparison, really.
Barfield was a sweet, gentle, kind soul who was in over his head.
Chizik, by all accounts, is a tough, hard-nosed, no-nonsense dude - who also may be in over his head.
Read more about Chizik's hiring and what columnist Kevin Scarbinsky has to say in Sunday's Birmingham News.
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2008/12/auburn_family_stunned_by_gene.html
Nick Saban will eat Gene Chizik for breakfast
Posted by Kevin Scarbinsky - The Birmingham News December 13, 2008 7:04 PM
Categories: Alabama Football, Auburn Football, SEC, Sports
Gene Chizik? As head football coach? At Auburn?
One former SEC assistant heard the news and laughed out loud, according to Birmingham News columnist Kevin Scarbinsky.
Todd J. Van Emst Auburn defensive coordinator Gene Chizik, center, won the Broyles Award in 2004 as the nation's top assistant coach. The Tigers went 13-0 that year. At left is his wife Jonna and, on his right, former Arkansas head coach Frank Broyles. The award was presented to Chizik in Little Rock on Jan. 11, 2005.
One former Auburn assistant who worked alongside Chizik reacted with stunned silence.
One college football insider who knows both the current Alabama coach and the coach Auburn has chosen to battle him said Chizik is a good coach - but suggested that Nick Saban will eat him for breakfast.
No word on whether it'll be before or after his daily Little Debbies.
In Saban, the current national coach of the year, Alabama found the next best thing to Bear Bryant.
In Chizik, even some people who bleed orange and blue fear, Auburn may have countered with another Doug Barfield.
It's an invalid comparison, really.
Barfield was a sweet, gentle, kind soul who was in over his head.
Chizik, by all accounts, is a tough, hard-nosed, no-nonsense dude - who also may be in over his head.
Read more about Chizik's hiring and what columnist Kevin Scarbinsky has to say in Sunday's Birmingham News.
This is literary garbage. Talk about jumping on the bandwagon, it's easy to kick somebody when they are down isn't it Scarbinsky. I hope this article comes back to bite him in the ass.
I think the odds are against Chizik, I haven't heard many good things so far. He's the coach whether I like it or not, so I'll hope for the best and support them. Who knows, he could be ther best coach AU has ever had, but the odds are stacked against him in my opinion.
Any Iowa St opinions out there?
I think the odds are against Chizik, I haven't heard many good things so far. He's the coach whether I like it or not, so I'll hope for the best and support them. Who knows, he could be ther best coach AU has ever had, but the odds are stacked against him in my opinion.
Any Iowa St opinions out there?
here's an article out of Iowa State http://iowastate.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=889020
Paul Clark
CycloneReport.com Publisher
<SCRIPT language=javascript>document.write("<div id=contentcontainer style='font-size: " + currentsize + "pt;'>");</SCRIPT>Talk about it in ISU Confidential
Finally. After two years of holding my tongue and being a good soldier – or shill as KXNO's Marty & Miller not so inaccurately said – I can put it all out there regarding what I've thought from day one about former Iowa State football coach Gene Chizik.
When Chizik was hired, I told some media colleagues in confidence that his stay at Iowa State would be three years maximum. Either he would fail miserably and be fired or he would have a little success and jump on the very first opportunity that came along to move back south. Now I must admit, even I am surprised at the bizarre turn of events whereby he failed miserably at Iowa State and still got to jump on the very first opportunity that came along to move back south. What the hell Auburn is thinking is anybody's guess. And who cares. Because it just unburdened Iowa State of its most unprepared, overmatched and incompetent head coach of the modern era.
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Chizik's game day performance speaks for itself and his Saturday state of confusion was boderline comical, if you subscribe to the idea that it's better to laugh than to cry. He might someday have the mental capacity to manage a game as head coach, but it's not there yet. The next opposing coach that Chizik outsmarts will be the first. Without superior athletes, he was rendered impotent as a coach and when all three phases became his ultimate responsibility, he gagged on it. Chizik coordinated defenses at Auburn and Texas; but as a head coach, all he coordinated was disarray. The Cyclone sideline resembled a fire drill more often than not in crucial situations and the number of delay of game penalties and wasted time outs that could be attributed to him and his staff was a career's worth, not two season's worth. The defense was ultimately dumbed down not so the players could understand it, but so the coaches could manage it. And even then they failed.
Would Chizik have eventually been able to win more games at Iowa State and perhaps even get to 6-6 and a bowl game? Maybe, eventually. Had he at least been stubborn enough not to quit, it was possible. After all, he had a brilliant rebuilding plan in place – get better players. Who could fail with a plan like that? But when you consider the games that his Iowa State teams choked away against very beatable opponents these last two autumns, even better players might not have mattered. Because the players he had at Iowa State were collectively good enough to go .500 or better in each of his two seasons in Ames. He and his coaching staff were the problem, not the players. Had the coaches been as good as the players, ISU would have won more games. Even if the players were horrible – say 5-19 horrible – that still means that Chizik and his staff generated a grand total of zero wins with their talent. The players, of course, were not 5-19 horrible, which means the reality is that Chizik and staff cost Iowa State victories as opposed to making them happen.
Iowa State had some good individual talent on its coaching staff. I was impressed throughout the past two seasons by coaches like Tony Petersen, Scott Fountain, Jay Rodgers and Mike Pelton. But when the CEO is swimming in confusion and the coordinators are ten years past their primes and their primes weren't all that good to begin with, there's only so much individual position coaches can do. When word came down that Petersen was losing his job in the staff reorganization, it was clear evidence to me that ability didn't carry much weight in the Cyclone football organization. Instead, clearly, it was a lot more about being part of Chizik's confederate clan than it was about coaching ability.
A two-word phrase will serve as Chizik's epitaph when it comes to his burying his dismal tenure at Iowa State: "firmly entrenched." That phrase was part of his disingenuous explanation regarding comments attributed to him by a Dallas radio show host by way of an Oklahoma State assistant coach. Now, those comments supposedly made by Chizik about being sorry he took the ISU job may have indeed been false. Or they may have been true. Whether they were ever spoken or not doesn't matter, they were definitely being thought. The truth was, Chizik couldn't have been less firmly entrenched at Iowa State. If the Chiziks even bothered to fully unpack, it would be a stunner to me. Never has someone so obviously had an eye on the exit immediately after coming through the entrance.
Chizik's decision to bolt for Auburn – while fine and good in and of itself – is obvious proof that he did regret coming to ISU and that he had quit on the job and given up on accomplishing anything in Ames. And it certainly shows that he was not firmly entrenched. Whether or not he ultimately got the Auburn job was immaterial once he had interviewed. The real story of the last two days was the Chizik was not up to the task and he knew it. As did many of us. It's nothing short of a blessing that Auburn took him off Iowa State's hands. It was quick and painless and just gives ISU a one-year head start on cleaning up the mess that Chizik created. He never hesitated to let people know how much work there was to be done and what a bad situation he stepped into. Well, the next guy will have it a lot worse, thanks entirely to Chizik. But the next guy will probably be a lot better head coach, so it's still a net gain for Iowa State.
Gene Chizik was Plan B for Iowa State. While even that was too high considering the candidates interviewed, it's at least reassuring to know that someone better than him wanted the job in 2006 and was even offered the job, but just couldn't pull the trigger fast enough to take it. ISU settled for Chizik and got what it got. Even though he was packaged and sold as a rock star, he wasn't hired as one. The rock star got away, so Iowa State took the back-up singer. It's Auburn's problem now. While he has a better chance of winning in general there – because he'll have better players – he'll be up against it in a job where so much is riding on one rivalry game a year. Beating Alabama trumps all else at Auburn and Nick Saban will probably floss with Gene Chizik on an annual basis. It's a coaching mismatch of epic proportions. I mean, if Mike Sanford and Tom Amstutz and Doug Martin hand you your lunch with inferior talent, what's Saban going to do with superior talent? When the clock ticks down to 0:00 on future Iron Bowls, there will be nothing left to do but I.D. the Auburn bodies.
Good luck, Auburn, you'll need it
Call me crazy, but I think this will turn out to be a good hire. From what I see I like this guy and think he'll do well. People get way too into getting a "big name" coach. Give the guy a chance before you say it's a shit hire and get all pissed, he may just surprise you. I'd personally take him over Turner Gil.
AU took a pounding on outside the lines yesterday in respect to it being a racist hire. Im pretty livid about the whole deal. Do I think some of those old fogeys in power didn't want a black coach. Yea, that's probably the case, but I don't think it was why Chizik was hired. He was hired because the trustees and all the power brokers behind the scenes feel like they can control him.
I got a question for you, if you had to pick between two coaches, everything being equal, flip the coin for the best choice. One white, one black, would you be better off hiring the black guy because of the positive publicity that the school would receive?
On another note, anyone who heard the piece and know who Paul Finebaum is, what a self serving peice of trash. He threw Auburn under the bus on national TV. It's one thing to do it on your radio show in the state to get people stirred up, but to go on national TV and try to intentionally put down and hurt the university is a completely different subject. Especially when there is absolutely no proof racism had anything to do with it.
I got a question for you, if you had to pick between two coaches, everything being equal, flip the coin for the best choice. One white, one black, would you be better off hiring the black guy because of the positive publicity that the school would receive?
On another note, anyone who heard the piece and know who Paul Finebaum is, what a self serving peice of trash. He threw Auburn under the bus on national TV. It's one thing to do it on your radio show in the state to get people stirred up, but to go on national TV and try to intentionally put down and hurt the university is a completely different subject. Especially when there is absolutely no proof racism had anything to do with it.
